Gen 4 Gen 4 OU Sunny Day Shiftry Spotlight

[Sleepin’_Snorlax66]

Creepy Doll (Claydol) @ Heat Rock
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Atk / 144 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Sunny Day
Creepy Doll is my lead/weather setter. Rapid Spin to get rid of rocks because my team doesn’t particularly like fighting types and Rubber Chicken, along with Creepy Doll are the only ones with a fighting resist and Rubber Chicken HATES rocks. Stealthrock for having hazards, which makes Karate-Tree and Plant’s life much easier. Earthquake for powerful STAB against rocks, T-Tar especially. And of course Sunny Day, the heart and soul of this team. Heat rock for 8 glorious turns of sun. Bulky EVs in order to live long enough to set up rocks/spin them away and set up SDay (that’s what I’m gonna call it from now on cuz typing Sunny Day takes a while :b )



Karate-Tree (Shiftry) @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Seed Bomb
- Low Kick
Karate-Tree is my main sweeper. Swords Dance for setting up, because Karate-Tree’s Atk is already 328 without any boosts. Seed Bomb can hit grounds/rocks and bulky waters for HARD STAB damage. Sucker Punch is just good for STAB coverage, and Low Kick is for steels which let Karate-Tree hit common steel walls pretty hard. Atk EVs and Life Orb to give Karate even more damage output on top of base 328 Atk. 252 Spe EVs let Karate be EXTREMELY fast with Chlorophyll.



Scorching Ant (Heatran) @ Heat Rock
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Fire Blast
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
Scorching Ant is kind of a support/back-up Sunny Day setter... Sub in order to put up SDay and Toxic safely, Fire Blast to do significant damage to a lot of mons with STAB SDay. Toxic to cripple whatever’s in from of Scorching Ant because Fire Blast can’t do too much to the likes of Gliscor and Hippowdon. Sunny Day in order to ready Karate-Tree or Plant for another sweep, and to boost Scorching Ant’s Fire Blast.



Plant. (Leafeon) @ Life Orb
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Double-Edge
- Synthesis
Plant is my second, mainly late game sweeper. SD is for having Plant’s Atk be pretty damn high in addition to 252 Atk EVs and Life Orb. Leaf Blade is very powerful with all the things mentioned above, this also let’s Plant function as breaker being able to OHKO lots of water wall in the meta like Milotic and Slowbro.
Grass and Normal type coverage is very strong the only Pokemon resisting both is Gengar (I think...) which is why I’m running Double-Edge. Synthesis is mandatory for healing back all the recoil from
D-Edge and Life Orb, plus Synthesis is boosted In sun.


Spiky Bird Thing (Zapdos) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Baton Pass
- Agility
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Flying]/Sunny Day/Roost/Substitute
Spiky Bird Thing is a pivot that fits in a whole lot better than Rubber Chicken (R.I.P. June 19-22 2019). I realized that once my sweepers went down, my team would get f***ed by waters. Because pivots are meant to sponge damage Spiky Bird can maintain itself throughout the match taking out all of the waters that severely threaten my team. This thing gets Agility and BPass which means that it can function as a pivot by switching in and out with BPass and can also pass speed boost to the rest of my team that needs speed (I’m looking at you Scorching Ant...Creepy Doll...) Thunderbolt for reliable STAB damage (Not Thunder because Thunder’s accuracy is only 50% in sunlight) and I’m very skeptical about the last slot because HP Flying lets me take out Fighting that piss this team off (HP Flying over Drill Peck because I’m running a special set) Sunny Day would let me setup for another sweep but it would only last for 5 turns because I need leftovers for longevity, Roost would give me more longevity in order to take out waters, and Sub would let me get speed boosts safely.


Crazy Monkey (Infernape) @ Life Orb
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Vacuum Wave
Crazy Monkey is my backup/just in case sweeper, and an extra special attacker for breaking down all those annoying special walls (Blissey, I’m looking at you...) because most of my team are physical attackers. Nasty Plot in order to set up and deal big damage without having to use SDay. Fire Blast and Focus Punch for two ridiculously powerful STAB NP boosted attaks, and Vacuum Wave for priority. Fast SpA EVs to do even more special damage. Life Orb on top of the things above makes this thing UNSTOPPABLE.
​

 

[Seven Thunders]

There are a lot of incredibly serious issues with this team.

It's generally not recommend to have any Pokemon weak to Stealth Rock given on a team unless there is some mechanism to get rid of it. Generally, this is done with Rapid Spin, although very aggressive teams of a highly offensive nature might just have a lead with Taunt, and hope to not give the opponent time to set up Stealth Rock by capitalizing on momentum.

Considering that your sole Fighting resist is the DOUBLE Stealth Rock weak Moltres, in addition to 3 weaknesses to Fighting types, the teams Fighting weakness is crippling.

The prevalence of Fire types on the team also compounds other weaknesses, particularly Water. Many DPP players consider Breloom to be a poor Water resist because of its general frailty/very low special Defense, and considering how weak other team members are (3 Water weaknesses) this is also a serious issue.

To the best of my knowledge, i'm not sure there exists a Sunny Day team in DPP that is good, the ubiquitous nature of Stealth Rocks is very crippling to Fire types that arent hybrids which take neutral damage (Heatran, Infernape).

 

[Sinkyr]

Happy day eden's embrace

 

[Sleepin’_Snorlax66]

Should I keep the Raikou-Heatran Core or start from scratch?

 

[Excal]

Should I keep the Raikou-Heatran Core or start from scratch?

I would honestly recommend starting out by using teams from the Ruins of Alph Sample Teams thread, as competitively this team cannot be evaluated because it is far from viable for the reasons Seven Thunders stated among many more. If you enjoy using this team for fun then you can continue using it but the Sample Teams would be a great tool for you to gain a better understanding of the metagame and building convention, so that you can eventually start to build your own teams (this is if you want your teams to be competitively viable). We also have more sample teams in the Ruins of Alph PS! room.

 

[Sleepin’_Snorlax66]

I would honestly recommend starting out by using teams from the Ruins of Alph Sample Teams thread, as competitively this team cannot be evaluated because it is far from viable for the reasons Seven Thunders stated among many more. If you enjoy using this team for fun then you can continue using it but the Sample Teams would be a great tool for you to gain a better understanding of the metagame and building convention, so that you can eventually start to build your own teams (this is if you want your teams to be competitively viable). We also have more sample teams in the Ruins of Alph PS! room.

Thank You for this but I have had lots of experience with DP UU and just wanted to have some fun with a Sunny Day OU team, I have posted a more viable (it’s still not great) team on this thread, I know I’m using a loophole, so if this gets locked, feel free to PM me (Sleepin’_Snorlax66) on PS! What I’m trying to say here is that I’m just using this semi-casually and am making improvements as I go.

 

[peng]

So as others have mentioned, Sun is really difficult in DPP OU. Of all the generations since Sunny Day was introduced, DPP OU might be the one where its actually least viable. That said, there are some ways to use it, have a lot of fun, and still be borderline competitive.

The first thing I'd say is don't go all-in. Rain teams in DPP OU can afford to be built purely around utilising Rain, often utilising Azelf + Bronzong for set-up, and then 4 Life Orb Swift Swimmers. This works because Rain boosts both speed and the primary STAB of the rain sweepers, so they are incredibly threatening from turn 2 onwards. Sun is different because the Chlorophyll sweepers aren't immediately as powerful, and the Fire-types don't get a speed boost. As a result, the only semi-viable sun teams I've seen only use Sunny Day as a means of cleaning up late-game, rather than building entirely around Fire-types and Chlorophyll Pokemon.

Most of the semi-viable sun teams that I've seen in DPP OU follow a framework something like this:

Generally, you should probably be selecting one Chlorphyll sweeper (the special ones tend to do best - I'll assume Exeggutor from here on), and one Fire-type (Heatran). Filling your team with too many Sun abusers is just asking to get ripped up by Dragons, Tyranitar, and opposing Heatran. The remaining 4 slots are best used to set the stage for your Chlorophyll sweeper by getting rid of the big defensive threats.

Your main enemies are Tyranitar, and Heatran. For this reason, Choice Band Dugtrio is sun's best friend, particularly when paired with U-turn / Baton Pass partners. (Check out this RMT to see a good example of a team that uses U-turn + Dugtrio to lure Ttar / Heatran, enabling a Zapdos sweep - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/six-paths-of-pain.3464138/). You can role compress a lot here by picking something that baits Tyranitar/Heatran, use U-turn, Stealth Rock, and reliably set-up Sunny Day later in the battle - Azelf, Uxie, Crobat, Jirachi are all pretty good at this.

The other public enemy of Chlorphyll sweepers is Latias. You can go down the Pursuit route (Scizor, Weavile), or a more streamlined approach is to use Explosion Heatran and/or Explosion Exeggutor. This way, Heatran and Exeggutor can bait in Latias for one-another, punching a hole for the other to sweep.

As a result, a really basic 6-Pokemon framework for Sun is something like:
1) Stealth Rock + Sunny Day lead like Azelf, Uxie, Crobat, Jirachi etc
2) Dugtrio @ Choice Band - Earthquake / Stone Edge / Sucker Punch / Filler
3) Filler slot - focus more on team synergy than abusing sun
4) Filler slot - focus more on team synergy than abusing sun
5) Heatran @ Choice Scarf - Fire Blast / Earth Power / Hidden Power Ice / Explosion
6) Exeggutor @ Life Orb - Sunny Day / Solarbeam / Psychic / Hidden Power [Fire]

Hopefully this gives you some help! I know I deviated very heavily from what the team you've posted, but some of these Pokemon like Leafeon and Claydol are better off plying their trade in the lower tiers. If you're comitted to running Sun in DPP OU though, I'd strongly advise moving towards something like the framework above, which can actually cause some serious issues for some of the common teams!